


nothing breaks your heart (but me)

by kay_emm_gee



Series: the kids aren't alright (The 100 tumblr prompts) [45]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, F/M, Future Fic, Homecoming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-02
Updated: 2015-10-02
Packaged: 2018-04-24 09:41:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4914643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kay_emm_gee/pseuds/kay_emm_gee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: Bellarke + Fireproof by The National</p>
<p>Summary: Bellamy goes to find Clarke, but it seems like she is not ready to come home, not even for him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	nothing breaks your heart (but me)

**Author's Note:**

> Well. This song (and prompt) was a bundle of fun and tears.

“Don’t you dare tell me how I should feel,” Clarke hisses, her paint-lined eyes flashing dangerously in the candlelight, which catches on her shimmering, interwoven braids. “You don’t have thousands of lives on your hands.”

“Don’t I?” Bellamy screams back, as loud as she is quiet. “The Culling, the Grounders at the dropship, Mt. Weather. I did those things, I am responsible too! Even TonDC. Octavia said you did that for me. For  _me._  Who gave you the right?”

“Who gave _you_  the right to come find me, tell me to get over it, to come back, that I should have set aside my guilt by now?”

“We need you!”

“I don’t have anything left to give!” She cries, tears pouring over her cheeks. Her hasty swipes to get rid of them smudge her war paint, wiping it partially away. Finally he can see the red rims of her eyes, how pale and gaunt her cheeks have become. He sucks in a breath, because even during their worst days at the dropship, she didn’t look this torn apart. 

“You don’t know me, not anymore,” she continues, a bit of steel back in her otherwise shaky voice. “So don’t you fucking tell me how I should be feeling.”

“Fine,” he bites back. “I won’t tell you how you feel. But do you know how I feel?”

He watches her swallow and take a step back, because she knows his storm is coming. She knows, so he lets the downpour come without a shred of mercy.

“I feel bone-tired, utterly exhausted, because yes, our people are alive and safe, because I’ve kept them that way, but it’s because I’ve given all of myself to them, because  _you_  asked me to. I feel proud that they’re alive, but most of the time I also feel lost, I feel like I’m drowning, like hands are clawing at my feet, just waiting to drag me down into a grave along with the rest of our dead friends and enemies. I feel abandoned, I feel angry, I feel like you took part of me with you when you left. I feel  _guilty_ , like I should’ve made you stay, that I should’ve forced you to walk inside those damn gates, because everyone looks at me like it’s my fault, that you would’ve stayed if I had tried harder, but I asked you, Clarke, I  _begged_  you, and you still left. I feel like I hate you, or that I should hate you, but I don’t. Because we need you.  _I_ need you.”

He chokes on the last three words, his throat as raw as his heart.

Clarke just closes her eyes, sending more tears down her face. “I can’t, Bellamy. I can’t.”

Her voice breaks on her last two words, and her weakness breaks him.

“I had to try,” he whispers. “I at least had to try.” 

“I wish–”

“Don’t,” he growls, because he can’t live on empty promises anymore. He storms out, walking back into the dark, deserted streets of Polis, leaving a girl he used to know behind him. Looking up at the black sky, he scowls at the stars, because this time he knows what he would wish for, and so does she, but they both also know it won’t be granted. 

She doesn’t have that kind of power anymore, and neither does he. So Bellamy leaves in the morning, and three days later, he walks back through the camp gates by himself, like he did all those months ago. 

He couldn’t make her stay then, and he couldn’t make her come back now, and he stops feeling the blood rushing through his veins, because he doesn’t feel anything anymore, not without her, or even the hope of her.

* * *

A month later, she walks out of the forest just beyond the fence, the paint and all but a few of the braids gone. She still has tears in her eyes, fear in her eyes, but she walks forward anyways. With each stride towards them that Bellamy watches her take, his heart begins to beat again, pounding in time with her hesitant steps. 

The sun is high in the sky when Clarke Griffin finally walks through the camp gates, not a star in sight. 

They never needed wishes, he realizes as he pulls her into his arms.

They just need each other.

**Author's Note:**

> I have strong opinions about Clarke's return. Yes, Bellamy has the right to be angry. BUT Clarke also has the right to do what is best to heal her own mind. That can't be rushed (but it probably will in season 3 because apparently plot >>> character development *sighs*). This is my way of reconciling those two ideas.
> 
> Come find me on tumblr (kay-emm-gee)!


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